Register radio columnist Gary Lycan dies at 68

Register radio columnist Gary Lycan died Tuesday at age 68. NICK KOON, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Longtime Register radio columnist Gary Lycan is shown in an undated photo. FILE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Gary Lycan, who was a member of the Register's staff for 40 years and continued writing its radio column for a decade after leaving the newspaper, is shown at his desk in an undated photo. FILE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Register radio columnist Gary Lycan died Tuesday at age 68. NICK KOON, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Gary Lycan, whose four decades as radio columnist for the Orange County Register made him one of the preeminent experts on the past and present of Southern California's airwaves, has died. He was 68.

Lycan had battled prostate cancer in recent years but continued to write his column; the most recent one appeared in the Register on Saturday. He died in his sleep Tuesday, said Hazel Wurfl, his companion for the past eight years.

"Gary Lycan covered Southland radio like nobody ever has and with such consistency," said Don Barrett, founder of LARadio.com, a website that covered the radio scene starting in the 1990s. "Gads, the radio industry has lost its biggest cheerleader. If we ever get a Southern California Radio Hall of Fame, Gary should be the first one inducted."

Lycan was a lifelong Santa Ana resident who spent 40 years on the staff of the Register, rising from copy boy in 1962 to assistant managing editor for features before leaving the newspaper in 2002. For the past decade he continued the radio column, which he had started around 1968, as a freelancer, also contributing news stories when something major broke on the radio beat.

"The radio column began somewhere around 1968 when I was covering a UC Irvine historical series on old-time radio," Lycan explained once in an interview with Barrett's LARadio.com. "The greats of the day came to speak – Jim Jordan, Edgar Bergen, et cetera – and I was hooked."

Lycan, who was born Nov. 18, 1944, got his first taste of journalism in 1959 as a writer on the Santa Ana High School newspaper The Generator. He wrote for a Saturday high school section of the Los Angeles Herald-Express and majored in journalism at Santa Ana College and Cal State Fullerton.

CAREER AS AN EDITOR

At the Register, he spent most of his career as an editor, including Sunday editor, entertainment editor, and assistant managing editor for features and later operations. Later, when the then-new field of information services emerged, he worked as the newsroom's specialist in that area.

But it was the radio column he launched almost by accident where he left his biggest mark on the pages of the Register. For decades, the Sunday Arts and Entertainment section was anchored by the steady presence of Lycan's weekly column. In it he'd open with the biggest news of the week – Dave Hull and Mandy Armstrong's new online show got that spot in his last column. From there you'd get a broad roundup of radio news – who had a new show and who was leaving their old one, which legendary disc jockey was recovering from an illness, and what happened at a reunion of old station hands that month.

"His perch to hear the changing landscape of radio was unique, mainly because he cared so much and he treated each story and personality with respect," Barrett said. "When I came along in the mid-'90s to write about LA Radio, instead of treating me like competition, he welcomed me because he knew it would be good for radio."

In November, Lycan was honored at the Los Angeles Press Club's National Entertainment Journalism Awards as its print columnist of the year for a piece he'd written on former Southern California radio personality "Sweet Dick" Wittington. He was too sick at the time to attend and was typically modest and appreciative about the honor after he learned of it, Wurfl said.

"I remember the email he sent me about it," she said. "It was something like, 'OMG, I won an award!' He was very humble."

PASSION FOR PETS, OLD HOLLYWOOD

His interests extended beyond radio to include topics such as pets and old Hollywood. From 1991 to 2009 he was senior producer on "The Pet Place TV," a pet adoption show that ran on KDOC-TV/56. He also served as president of Eelvad Inc., a nonprofit that produced "Pet Place Radio," a weekly show on 1260 AM hosted by his longtime friend Marie Hulett.

Though he was a dog guy for most of his life – poodles were what his family had always had, Wurfl said – after coming across a sweet black-and-white longhaired kitten eight years ago, he couldn't resist. Since then the cat, Fluff – which Wurfl is hoping to find a new home for – had been his constant companion.

After leaving the Register in 2002, he worked more in TV and radio. From 2003 to 2009, he wrote and produced "Macabre Theatre," a syndicated TV show that aired movies with the campy host Ivonna Cadaver. In 2009 he created a podcast series called "Monster Talk Radio," which explored the history of horror films and included guests such as director John Landis and the spawn of horror stars such as Sara Karloff and Bela Lugosi Jr.

After writing the forewords to "Forgotten Hollywood, Forgotten History," and its sequel, he joined author Manny Pacheco, another friend, in 2011 to help out with a weekly radio show of the same name.

Starting in 2010, Lycan taught broadcasting at the Academy of Television & Radio in Huntington Beach. He also served on the advisory board overseeing the Titan magazine at Cal State Fullerton.

In his personal life, Lycan enjoyed simple pleasures, Wurfl said. If he was going out, a walk on the beach offered all the entertainment he needed, she said. If they were staying in, dinner and chatting about their days and a good TV show was all he needed.

And always, there was radio to listen to, she said.

"He always listened to the new programs coming up," Wurfl said. "He would either listen at his house, in his car, streaming online, or at my place. He was always listening to a radio program."

Lycan is survived by one cousin, Deb Lycan, who lives with her family in Nevada.

He left instructions that he didn't want a service. (We know this because in his typically thorough ways, he prepared an updated biography and obituary two months ago.) Instead, arrangements will be handled by the Neptune Society, which will bury him at sea.

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